


what’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing?

by StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Enjoy!, F/F, anyway, because there are DEFINITELY spoilers in here, beware of spoilers y'all, i freakin loved that one scene, i know rick riordan's not the best but i did like that scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26980900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese/pseuds/StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese
Summary: Five times Shel made Piper smile.
Relationships: Piper Mclean/Shel
Comments: 25
Kudos: 107





	what’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing?

**Author's Note:**

> *banging pots and pans together* DEMIGODS HAVE PTSD DEMIGODS HAVE PTSD DEMIGODS HAVE PTSD
> 
> just a heads up: i only read book 1 of trials of apollo. so... sorry if this is totally incorrect. I did read the Shel/Piper scene, though, so...

_**1** _

It had happened too quickly to stop it.

One minute, Jason was fine. He was fighting, and his head was bleeding again, but he was standing and he was controlling the winds and he was _fine_.

But then…

But then.

Then.

Piper didn’t even remember it happening. Not really. There were a few reasons, ones that she told herself. She had been unconscious, she had been traumatized, she hadn’t realized what was going on.

But one minute Jason was fine and then the next he wasn’t.

He wasn’t fine.

He was gone.

Piper had returned to school feeling hollow.

Why did she feel like this? They had broken up. Their relationship had been based on lies. Hera and Aphrodite and _you’re a knockout_ had all combined and Piper was caught up in a whirlwind of– of–

Well, it didn’t even matter anymore, did it?

Because Jason was gone.

How was she supposed to move on? 

Jason had been… well, one of her closest friends. Not a boyfriend. But a friend. Her friend. And a huge part of her life, even if they’d never gotten to reconcile. And… he left a big, gaping, aching hole in her heart.

The last thing she wanted was to do calculus, and history, and English. The last thing she wanted to do was to pretend like everything was okay.

But… she was here. At a new school. 

Her senior year.

Alone.

Gods, Piper wanted to vomit. She clenched her fists, taking some deep breaths. She could feel Katroptis pressed against her thigh, the cold metal giving only a modicum of comfort. But it was enough.

It would be enough. 

It had to be enough.

Okay. 

First day.

New school.

No big deal.

Except… 

There was staring. There was a lot of staring.

And whispering.

_“Is that Tristan McLean’s daughter?”_

_“Didn’t she, like, disappear a few years ago?”_

_“Wasn’t she running around Greece a while back?”_

_“My uncle said authorities were totally looking for her! And that Peter Johnson kid, you know, the guy who blew up the St. Louis Arch?”_

_“Do you think she’d get me her dad’s autograph?”_

The staring she could handle, but gods, the whispering she hated the most. Somehow, her shorn hair made it worse. She couldn’t hide behind the brown locks anymore, and their gazes burned the back of her neck.

Piper hadn’t remembered quite this much _staring_ at the Wilderness School, but then again, that could have very easily been altered by Hera’s trying to shove Jason in there. Piper shuddered in revulsion and fought down a wave of nausea. 

The idea that a god could so easily take everything from her… it wasn’t a thought that sat easily with her. At least Percy and Jason got their memories _back_. She and Leo were stuck with nothing.

So she pushed her way through the halls, and ignored the other kids. Piper took some small reassurance in the feeling of the cool metal of her knife strapped to her thigh. She worked her tongue around her mouth and reminded herself that she had charmspeak. 

Piper McLean would not be caught unawares. 

So she sat in English class, probably coming off as standoffish, slouching and trying not to draw attention to herself, wishing desperately that she were invisible.

Which, you know, might be possible. There was probably a god or a nymph or something out there that could totally do that for her.

She should look into that.

“Hey,” a voice said, and Piper was startled out of her thoughts. 

There was a girl standing above her, hand on the seat beside Piper. The newcomer had dark skin, short hair, a stud in her nose, and the darkest, deepest eyes Piper had ever seen. She smiled, and Piper felt her heart give a flutter. 

“This spot taken?” the girl asked.

“Oh. Um, no.” Piper grabbed her bag and moved it quickly. “I’m Piper.” She didn’t bother with her last name, but the girl didn’t seem to mind.

“Call me Shel,” Shel said, and offered a small smile.

And Piper, to her surprise, found herself smiling back.

* * *

_**2** _

Shel, it turned out, was the kind of person who adopted friends rather than made them. She took Piper under her wing after that one English class, and flatly refused to take no for an answer.

Piper found herself eating with Shel, doing homework with Shel, exploring the school with Shel, and just hanging out with Shel in general.

She would be lying if she said it didn’t feel nice to be included.

Shel was a lone wolf, just like Piper, and at the moment, they seemed to be each other’s best friends.

And even though Piper couldn’t tell Shel a whole lot about her life, she could tell her bits and pieces. The first time she “borrowed” a BMW. The time she and Leo had tried to break the record for climbing the lava-rock-climbing wall at Camp (although for Shel’s sake it was amended to a normal rock wall). The stories her father and grandfather told about Cherokee myths.

And in return, Shel told her things, too. Piper learned about Shel’s grandmother’s love of spicy foods, and innocent-yet-funny childhood mishaps that resulted from that. She learned about Shel’s fierce love for her family, and the love she got in return. She learned about a dog named Murphy, and his eternal feud with the neighbor’s cat, Evan.

It was nice, to have a friend who didn’t rely on her so much.

It was nice, to be seen as _Piper_ – not the daughter of Tristan McLean, not a child of Aphrodite, not “one of the Seven”, not the head counselor of Cabin Ten, not a Cherokee half-blood, not a delinquent, not a screw-up, not a kleptomaniac, not a failure–

Just– Piper.

And Shel _did_ know that Tristan McLean was her father– she couldn’t _not_ know, it was the talk of the school. She just… didn’t seem to care.

It felt good. It felt really good.

They had been in English class, waiting for the final bell, when Shel had poked Piper’s back with a pencil stub. “Hey,” she whispered.

“Hey yourself,” Piper said back.

“I’m free after school today,” she said. “Can we hang out?”

Piper shrugged. “I’m fine with that.”

“Cool. You mind if we go to your place?”

“Uh… well, we just moved,” Piper said, remembering the boxes piled around the house with a wince, “but sure? So long as you don’t mind decor that was ancient when my dad was still a kid.”

“Psh, you should see my grandma’s house,” Shel said. “All seventies, all the time. Don’t tell her I said this, but it’s a total eyesore.”

Piper snorted. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Thanks,” Shel said. She smiled widely, and before Piper could say anything else, the bell rang.

It was a quick bus ride back home, and it was made all the quicker by sharing it with Shel. They talked about anything and everything, and more than once, Shel made Piper laugh so hard she had trouble breathing.

Nobody was home, so Piper quickly steered Shel to her room, momentarily sending up a quick thanks to whatever god was in charge of foresight that she’d cleaned her room the other day. It would have been awkward if there was a sword on her bed or spoils of war on her desk.

“Hey, you guys have any posters and stuff?” Shel asked. “Like– what was that movie? _King of Naples?_ That one was super popular.”

“Ugh,” Piper said. “No, we don’t, we got rid of them. I used to see him everywhere, though. Not fun.” She made a face. “And it was _King of Sparta_ , by the way. Ugh. Hated that poster.”

Shel grinned. “Good movie, though.”

Piper pretended to gag. “Please stop.”

“I personally think it was the peak of cinema.”

“Ew, _no_.”

“And _god_ , when he takes off his shirt in that one scene–”

Piper threw a pillow at her, and Shel caught it, laughing.

“Girls?” Tristan McLean appeared in the doorway, and Shel yelped, leaping off of Piper’s bed and hitting her chin on the floor.

Piper’s dad took a few hasty steps forwards. “Are you okay?”

Shel, facedown on the floor, offered a rather pathetic thumbs up.

“Oookay,” Piper’s dad said, giving Piper an odd look as she fought to contain her laughter. “Just wanted to say I’m home, and I’ll be just out here if you guys need me.” He gave Piper a meaningful look. “Keep the door open.”

Suddenly, Piper knew that her face was as flushed as Shel’s, who thankfully hadn’t seemed to notice Piper’s dad’s parting statement in favor of thudding her head into the floor.

It wasn’t until her father left the room that Piper started giggling. Shel just groaned, still face down.

“I just made a fool of myself in front of the most popular actor in Hollywood,” Piper’s friend bemoaned. “I just embarrassed myself in front of the guy who almost played Captain America. Oh, God, I’m never going to forgive myself.”

“You totally deserved it,” Piper said, doing her best to not seem _too_ gleeful.

_“Ugh.”_

“I’m sure he’ll get over it,” Piper offered, trying very hard not to laugh when Shel just groaned again. “He will!”

Shel made a face at her, and for some reason that set Piper off again, and then Shel started cackling along.

Piper just sat there, laughing until she couldn’t breathe, and when Shel beamed at her, something in Piper’s chest slotted into place, like she was seeing the world right for the very first time.

* * *

_**3** _

For some reason, Jason was weighing heavy on Piper’s mind today.

She wasn’t sure why.

Maybe it was the perfect blue sky. Maybe it was the eagle she’d seen soaring overhead that morning. Maybe it was a forgotten dream she’d had. Maybe it was rotten luck.

Either way, Piper hadn’t been in the mood for school. Her mind had been full of battle and screaming and blood and Jason’s empty blue eyes.

Gods, how did the other demigods deal with this kind of thing?

Piper had wanted only to get through the day, go through the motions, and then collapse on her bed and sleep until morning.

But Shel had other plans.

“Piper!”

Piper shut her locker, taking a deep breath, before turning to see her friend fighting her way through the halls, offering Piper a huge grin all the while.

“How have you been?” Shel called from across the hallway, finally wrangling herself out of the clutches of the other students and staggering over in mock-exhaustion.

Gods, what a question.

“I’ve been better,” Piper admitted.

“You have? Oh, man,” Shel said, and her brow furrowed in sympathy. “What’s going on?”

“Um. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Okay, we don’t have to, then.”

Gods, Piper was so grateful for Shel.

And that’s about when the sound of screaming began.

Gods.

All Piper wanted was a normal day.

Was that too much to ask?

“Woah!” Shel yelled as a herd of students suddenly tore around the corner, stampeding straight towards them. Piper grabbed Shel’s hand and hauled her towards the wall, where they stood pressed against the lockers as the group of panicked students and teachers dashed by.

“What’s going on?” Piper yelled.

“Snake!” a boy shouted hysterically, joining the crowd sprinting off down the hallway. “Giant snake!”

“With wings!” a girl added, who was running in the same direction. 

Snake. Giant snake. With wings.

Definitely not normal.

Piper _so_ did not need this today.

“Go!” she said to Shel. “I– need to grab something from my locker!”

“Like hell you do! I’m not sure what that kid saw, but either way, I think whatever’s in your locker can wait!” Shel yelled back, grasping Piper’s hand in a death grip. Piper ignored the way her chest got warmer at the sensation and shook her friend off instead. 

“I’ll meet you at the entrance!” she said, and started running in the opposite direction of the crowd, fighting her way through the terrified crowd. Piper could hear Shel shouting after her, but she didn’t listen.

Piper swerved around a corner– and froze.

 _Oh,_ she thought dumbly, staring up at the coiled serpent, who turned jet-black eyes on her. _That_ is _a big snake._

Lying flat on its stomach, the snake was probably as tall as Piper. When it was all curled up like it was now, though, it’s green-black back was pressed against the ceiling. The snake opened its jaw, and two curved fangs glinted in the fluorescent light. Two jet-black, batlike wings, currently crunched up against the ceiling, were twitching and quivering menacingly.

Piper swallowed, taking a shaky step back.

And then she stole a glance to the side, and saw a group of kids, huddled behind a glass door, faces all pale and nauseated, all staring at her.

Unwillingly, Piper’s mind flashed back to the Grand Canyon. She remembered seeing her classmates’ faces looking exactly like that. She remembered them staring at her through the glass as she, Jason, and Leo fought for their lives.

Piper clenched her fists. She stood her ground.

It was just a snake, albeit a weird-looking one.

Piper crouched, keeping her eyes on the monster all the while. Her hands fumbled on the floor, looking for something, anything that might help her defend herself and her classmates. Her fingertips hit something hard.

A textbook.

Excellent.

Piper gripped the spine and hefted it upwards– an anatomy textbook, great, that would make it way heavier– and reared backwards, preparing to launch it at the monster and run. With any luck, it would follow her out of the school and she could figure out how to kill it once they were outside. Sure, its wings would be freed up and it would then have the advantage of the sky, but at least there would be less innocent bystanders caught up in any carnage a battle might cause.

“Hiyah!” Piper yelled, and threw the textbook at the snake. It bounced off the scales and thudded unimpressively to the floor.

For a long time, Piper and the snake just looked at each other. It was hard to say who seemed more surprised– Piper or the monster. The snake, for its part, seemed to be thinking _did you seriously just do that? Really?_

Piper swallowed hard. She drew her knife, prepared to try again.

And then the snake flipped its tail towards her and slammed Piper squarely in the chest.

Piper tumbled backwards. She could see the kids staring wide-eyed through the glass panels of the classroom, and realized too late that some were filming. Piper grit her teeth. She was no expert with the Mist like Hazel, but she did have her charmspeak. Worst-case scenario, she could probably get that footage deleted before it made its way onto YouTube or Reddit. 

Still, she could see it now: _Darwinism In Action: Idiot Girl Gets Knocked Out By Snake (Giant Snake) With Wings– Not Clickbait!!!_

She didn’t have her sword. That was bad.

She did have her knife, though. Katroptis was still clenched in Piper’s hand, and it seemed her old instincts from her lessons on the _Argo II_ had kicked in– _never_ let go of your weapon while in combat.

Good.

Piper gripped it tightly and flopped over, keeping the snake in her line of vision. It had coiled up again– how had it even gotten into the school in the first place?– and was staring at her coldly.

“ _Piper McLean, did you bring a KNIFE to school or– OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT THING?_ ”

Oh, no.

Slowly, Piper rolled onto her stomach, still gripping Katroptis in her hand, and looked up to see Shel’s horrified, panic-stricken face.

“That’s a thing!” she squealed, pointing at the snake, which was still coiled up on the far end of the hallway and was now eyeing them both with its hungry, beady black eyes. “That’s a– a big freakin’ snake thing! Piper! Crud! Do you have another knife I can use?”

“What are you doing here?” Piper shouted.

“I came to find you! What, you thought I would let you stay in the giant snake-y building alone?”

“Get out of here!”

The snake lunged. Shel screamed.

Piper leaped to her feet, grabbed Shel’s arm, and threw them both sideways and into the janitor’s closet, slamming the door shut behind them.

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god–” Shel was breathing hard, and her palm was sweaty in Piper’s hand. “Oh, God, my grandma was right. I should have gone to Church more often. And now I’m going to get killed by a giant-snake-thing. At school! _This_ school! God, if anything was going to kill me at this school I thought it would be, like, a falling brick or, or, or a scorpion in my locker! Not a giant-snake-thing!”

“Shh!” Piper said, pressing her ear against the door. Shel was holding Piper’s shoulders in a death grip, pressing her chest to Piper’s back, breath warm on her ear. 

“Hey, hey, what did Harry Potter do? You know, in the second book, he killed a giant snake, and I think we should do that,” Shel was babbling. “I mean, that is one big freakin’ snake, and I think J.K. Rowling would know what to do in this situation, and killing the snake is definitely something that we should do–”

“ _Shh!_ ” Piper said again.

“Sorry! Sorry.”

_Okay. Think, McLean._

Maybe her original idea of leading it outside and away from everyone else could still work.

But… 

“You’re not gonna stay in this closet if I ask you to, are you?” Piper asked, and Shel adamantly shook her head. “Okay, then. I’ll need a new plan.”

PIper worried at her bottom lip for a few seconds. If she didn’t act fast, the other students would be in danger. She had to kill the snake, and soon.

“Okay,” she said. “Here’s the plan. You go and get help from the teachers or something, and I’ll distract it.”

“No way!” Shel hissed.

“Thought not,” Piper said under her breath. “Okay, what about–”

“You’re a faster runner than I am,” Shel said. “ _I’ll_ distract it.”

“Wait, no!”

Before Piper could stop her or even grab her, Shel was opening the door and jumping out of the closet.

Piper let out a string of curse words and scrambled after her. “Shel!”

Shel was standing in the middle of the hallway, facing down the snake. “Go!” she yelled at Piper.

For a split second, Piper’s vision blurred. For a split second, it wasn’t Shel standing there, but a boy with blond hair and glasses and blue eyes instead.

_Go! Remember!_

“No!” Piper shouted. “I’m not leaving you!”

“Go get a teacher! Call 911!”

Piper clutched at her knife. “No!”

The snake, apparently tired of their arguing, lunged for Shel.

Shel dashed to one side, and Piper scooped up a loose tennis shoe. “Hey!” She launched the shoe at the snake.

The monster turned to face her, hissing angrily, and Piper made her move.

Piper had watched Jason do this countless times at Camp Half-Blood. She remembered him swearing up and down that he wasn’t using the wind to do it.

_Well, here goes nothing._

Piper sprinted directly at the wall, moving diagonally to the snake, and it hissed loudly, gearing up to strike.

Just as it did, however, Piper used her momentum to run _up_ the wall, only a few feet but it was enough– the snake smashed its head against the lockers– and Piper was in the air.

Somehow, she had managed to push herself backwards off the wall, like she was doing a flip-turn in swimming, only in the air. 

Piper turned, twisted her arms upwards, grabbed the edge of a leathery wing, and jammed her knife squarely in the snake’s back.

The knife plunged in deep, and the snake let out an unearthly shriek that startled Piper so badly she let go of the wing, tumbling and bouncing towards the floor, the feeling of dissolving snakeskin all around her.

_Gross._

Finally, Piper hit the floor, dust raining down around her. There were two solid _thumps_ on either side of her, and Piper vaguely recognized the curve of two fangs. Spoils of war. Yippee.

Slowly, she picked herself up. Piper was covered in dust, as was most of the hallway. Shel, peeking out from behind the row of lockers, was currently looking less like _Shel_ and more like _Peter Parker in the final scene of Avengers: Infinity War_. 

Shel’s eyes, though, were the same, and at the moment, they were huge. Her gaze darted from side to side, taking in the dust-caked hallway, the two-feet-long fangs on the floor, and Piper, standing in the middle of it all.

Instinctively, Piper took a deep breath, the power of charmspeak already curled under her tongue. She opened her mouth, locking eyes with Shel.

It would be so easy. _Turn around, walk out of here, and forget everything you saw in the past couple of minutes._

It would be so easy.

So easy.

_No._

Slowly, Piper closed her mouth. 

_I can’t do it._

She could do it to her classmates. She could do it to her teachers. But to do it to Shel, her friend, who had been the only person willing to hang out with her in this entire miserable mess of a school year?

“You know what?” Piper asked, voice strangled, “Can we talk about this later?”

“Yes!” Shel squeaked. “Yes, absolutely! Oh, my god, don’t look at me like that when you have a knife in your hand, I thought I was about to be next.”

Piper found herself fighting a smile despite herself, but she forced herself to remain serious. “And don’t mention this to our classmates, okay? Nothing about the snake.”

Shel blinked. “What? Why not?”

“Um. They won’t remember, or their memories will replace the monster with something else, like a rattler.”

“A rattler? That thing was huge! What even was it?” As she spoke, Shel’s eyes were getting wider and wider, her voice higher and higher pitched. “How did you kill it? And you had a knife? At school? And you killed it! You freakin’ killed it! You ran straight up the wall! _Who are you?_ ”

_Screw it._

Piper took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you more later, but long story short: the Greek gods are real, I’m a half-blood– one of my parents is a god– and that was a snake-monster-thing that I just killed.”

Shel stared at her, open mouthed. “The… the Greek… wait. Is this a prank show?”

Piper silently pointed to the pile of dust in the halls, and the giant fangs still sitting in the middle of it.

“Right,” Shel said. “Giant snake. Probably not a prank show. Not unless you have some _really_ good special effects.”

“Not a prank show,” Piper said.

“Right. Okay.” Slowly, Shel sat down, still staring at the pile of ex-giant-snake dust.

Piper carefully sat down next to her. “Are you okay?”

“Fine! Yeah, no, just had my entire worldview flipped. Give me a sec.” Shel was taking deep breaths, staring vaguely off into the middle distance. “So– all the Greek gods are real?”

“Yeah.”

“Zeus? Athena? Demeter?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the other things? Like Medusa, and the guy who ate his kids? Kronos, right?”

“Yeah, them, too.”

“Oh, God.”

“But– don’t worry,” Piper said quickly. “A friend of mine killed them both. I mean, they’ll regenerate eventually– or at least Medusa will– but they don’t really go for random mortals…” she trailed off when she realized she was only making the situation worse. “I mean, you’ll be fine! Don’t worry.”

“Worry? Who’s worried?” Shel let out a nigh-hysterical laugh. “Not me, I’m fine.”

“Um… you don’t _seem_ –”

“Who’s your mom, then?” Shel said, still breathing hard– the adrenaline clearly hadn’t worn off yet. Her face was sweaty, and her eyes were still bugging slightly. “I mean, unless it’s your dad. Oh, my god. Is Tristan McLean a Greek god? That would make so much sense! Is _that_ why he’s Chris Hemsworth-levels of hot?”

“It’s Aphrodite,” Piper said.

“Well, then, no wonder you’re so pretty, you just have amazing movie-star- _and_ -pretty-Greek-goddess genes. Wait, Aphrodite’s the pretty one, right? I’m not mixing her up with anyone?” 

Piper could feel herself turning red– _Shel thought she was pretty?_ – but she shook her head. “You got it right.”

Finally, _finally,_ Shel’s breathing seemed to return to normal levels. She grinned at Piper. “That’s _so cool._ ”

And Piper smiled back.

* * *

_**4** _

A loud BANG echoed through the library, and Piper flinched, images of lightning and too-bright godly forms and teeth snapping too close to her head flashing through her mind.

Shel’s concerned face appeared in her line of vision. “Uh, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s– it’s fine.” Piper took a deep breath and tried to center herself. She wasn’t on the battlefield, she was in the too-dusty, dimly-lit library that was almost totally empty, save two brown-haired girls huddled in the corner and the five-foot-nothing librarian behind the counter. If they _were_ monsters, Piper could probably turn them all to dust in an instant.

_Calm down, McLean!_

She forced herself to focus on the pile of books Shel had dropped on the table. She squinted at one of the covers. _D'Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths_... “Hold on. Are you… are you researching Greek mythology?”

“Yep!” Shel said happily.

Piper blinked. “You know this is my life, right? Like, _literally_ my life? I could just tell you what you want to know.”

“Okay, Mrs. Encyclopedia,” Shel scoffed. “I bet I can get at least one thing you don’t know.”

“Bring it,” Piper said.

“Did you know,” Shel said, a grin beginning to form on her face, “that your mom brought a statue to life one time, just because some guy _fell in love with it?_ ” She threw her hands in the air. “He fell in love with a statue! Who does that? Who _enables_ that?”

“Ugh.” Piper fought the urge to cover her face. “She’s so embarrassing.”

“Are you kidding? She sounds like a riot. Wish I’d known she was real when I did my Greek myths unit in sixth grade, I would’ve been a lot more invested in it. And, you know, might’ve taken up sculpting.” Shel opened one of the books, and to Piper’s simultaneous amusement and horror, she realized there were little colored sticky notes sticking out of the pages. “Here’s something else. Says here your mom got caught in an affair with Hephaestus. In a _literal net._ ”

Piper groaned. “I actually _did_ know that– Hephaestus is my friend Leo’s dad.” They had spent a couple hours being too squicked out to even look at each other, but everything had been righted by dinnertime.

Shel cackled. “Oh my _God._ ” She froze suddenly. “Hey, hold on a second– is that why you’re always saying _oh my gods?_ ”

Piper shrugged. “You pick up the habit when you’re around demigods long enough.” Percy, Annabeth, and Coach Hedge were the only people she knew who said it consistently– the Romans were too proper, and she and Leo hadn’t been around long enough to take up the practice while on the _Argo II_ – but the quirk did help her feel weirdly closer to her friends, in a way.

“ _Demigods,_ ” Shel breathed. “ _Wow_.”

Piper shifted uncomfortably. Shel’s awe hit a little too close to home– a little too close to _Tristan McLean is your_ dad? and _Piper… you’re a knockout!_

But Shel was shaking her head, grin never faltering. “Wild,” she said. “So, do you know Hercules? Wait, he’s probably dead. I don’t know many other Greek myths, I only just started researching. Do you have any cool stories?”

“I actually did meet Hercules once,” Piper admitted. “Well, Heracles.”

“No kidding? Was he cool? Was he like the guy in the Disney movie?”

“Uh… not really,” Piper said. “I buried him in a pile of organically-grown food.”

Shel blinked. “You what?”

“I used to have this magical cornucopia…” Piper trailed off when Shel’s jaw dropped. “Long story.”

“How about that thing? The snake-thing?” Shel said. “You killed it with– a knife, right? Do you still have it?”

“Oh.” After glancing around to make sure nobody was looking at them, Piper drew Katroptis. “I don’t use it too much anymore, but it’s easier to carry than anything else.”

“It’s huge!” Shel said. “And– how sharp is it?”

Piper handed the knife over. Shel took it, and tried to run her finger along the edge– only for her fingertips to slide right through the blade. 

“Aaah! Crud! Wait–” slowly, Shel lifted her hand, completely undamaged, face blank with astonishment. “What the _heck?_ ”

“Celestial bronze,” Piper said. “It doesn’t harm mortals.”

“Does it harm _you?_ ”

“Oh, definitely,” Piper said. “Try not to stab me with that anytime soon.”

Looking alarmed, Shel quickly put Piper’s knife down, and Piper slipped it back into her backpack. “It’s name is Katroptis,” she said.

Shel’s eyebrows rose. “Your _knife_ has a _name?_ ”

“I have a sword, too,” Piper said. “It’s not here, it’s at home. Want to see?”

Shel’s eyes lit up. “No way. A real life sword? That would be amazing. Can I hold it?”

Piper grinned. “Let’s get out of here and I’ll show you some moves.”

* * *

_**5** _

They were on the roof of the farmhouse, stargazing.

When Shel had suggested it, Piper had not been oblivious to the implications. She was a child of Aphrodite, after all.

Plus, hadn’t she and Jason done the exact same thing?

“So,” Shel whispered, “the only constellation I can consistently point out is Orion’s belt. Hey– you ever meet him?”

“No, but some of my friends have,” Piper said, and Shel grinned, eyes bright in the moonlight.

“It’s wild, being with you. I mention a Greek myth, and you’re like ‘yeah, I stabbed that guy in the eyeball once’, or ‘my friend Hazel drowned her in a sea of cursed gold one time’ or ‘no, I never met him, but my friend Percy vanquished him on Olympus, which is at the top of the Empire State Building’. It’s crazy.”

“Ugh, try _living_ it.”

Shel snorted, then they both went quiet for a few comfortable minutes.

“You ever go stargazing before?” Shel asked.

“…Yeah.” Piper looked up at the stars and tried to blink away the tears. “Jason took me to see the stars once. We went to the roof and just… sat there, and talked until morning.” She smiled despite herself. “I remember just… feeling so amazing, just being there with him. But… it wasn’t real. It was a… a fake memory, from Hera. We tried to recreate it, once, but looking back, it… it wasn’t really the same.”

For several long moments, Shel didn’t move. Then she shifted, rolling onto her stomach and propping herself up on her elbows so that she could look squarely into Piper’s eyes.

“Who’s Jason?” Shel whispered.

Piper took a deep breath and tried to focus on the sky. “My ex,” she admitted. “We… we broke up when I realized that I…” she touched her sternum and swallowed. “He was my best friend.”

“Was?”

Piper sat up, tucking her knees to her chest. “He’s dead.”

Shel sat up, too. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Piper said, and meant it. “He… he was a really good person.”

“He sounds like it.”

“It was a demigod’s death. A hero’s death.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

There was a slight breeze, and Piper felt it ruffle her hair.

“You ever gonna go back to fighting monsters and stuff?” Shel asked softly. “I mean… in all of your stories, you’re all over the world, and seeing all this cool stuff, but now… you’re here. In Oklahoma. Why?”

Piper shrugged, smiling a little to herself. “I guess I found something even better here.”

She could feel Shel’s eyes on the side of her head. She could feel her heart pounding at a thousand miles an hour. Slowly, Piper turned to meet Shel’s eyes.

And then Shel leaned in and kissed her.

It was like a million fireworks went off at once in Piper’s brain. It was like ecstasy, like pure wonder, like everything Hollywood and novels and comics promised it would be.

It was nothing like kissing Jason.

It was everything like kissing Jason.

And then there was a bright flash like a camera bulb going off.

Being the daughter of a celebrity who had been caught one too many times “borrowing” a car, Piper’s first instinct was panic. She whipped around, hand flying to her knife, a command for the photographer to forget what they’d seen already on her lips–

And then her vision focused, and Piper relaxed.

It was only Apollo.

Apollo, who was looking incredibly embarrassed and was clearly striving to look anywhere but Piper’s face.

Piper let go of Shel’s hand and did her best to glare without seeming too flustered. “Wow, Apollo. Timing.” She could feel Shel tensing beside her, and knew she was definitely going to freak out on Piper later. She suppressed a smile.

Apollo looked horrified. “Er, sorry. I–”

“Who’s this?” Shel asked Piper, a bit too loudly, clearly trying to hide a grin. “Your dad has a boyfriend?”

Apollo’s eyes went comically wide, and Piper could feel her own face going red. “Old family friend,” she said quickly to Shel, trying to communicate _Sorry, but please let me do the talking_ with her eyes. “Sorry, Shel. Would you excuse me a sec?”

Shel blinked. “Uh. Sure?”

Piper dragged Apollo across the roof.

“Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”

Apollo was still staring at Shel. “I… uh…” he shook his head quickly and grinned down at her. “I just wanted to check in, make sure you’re doing okay. It seems you are?”

“Well, early days,” Piper said, trying not to blush. 

But Apollo was nodding sympathetically.

“You’re in process,” he said.

“Exactly.”

His smile grew. “I’m happy for you.” He paused. “Your dad?”

Piper tried not to frown. “Yeah, I mean… from Hollywood back to Tahlequah is a big change. But he seems like he’s found some peace. We’ll see. I heard you got back on Olympus. Congratulations.”

Apollo frowned. “Thank you.” 

He talked for a couple of minutes.

He told her about Jason’s funeral.

Piper stared at the ground, hugging herself. Her stomach roiled.

Gods. Jason.

She didn’t think she would ever stop feeling pain at the sound of his name. 

But maybe… maybe she could start to move on. Maybe she already had.

“That’s good,” she finally said, trying not to let her voice crack. “I’m glad Camp Jupiter did right by him. You did right by him.”

“I don’t know about that,” Apollo said softly.

_The old Apollo never would have said that._

“You haven’t forgotten,” Piper said. “I can tell.”

“No. I won’t forget. The memory is part of me now.”

“Well, then good.” Piper glanced back, and saw Shel looking at her. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

Apollo blinked. “What?” He noticed Shel. “Oh, of course. Take care of yourself, Piper McLean.”

“You too, Apollo,” Piper said, and winced. “And next time, maybe give me a heads-up before popping in?”

He turned red and started muttering apologies, but Piper didn’t listen, already walking back towards Shel.

But she paused before she got there.

Shoving her hands into her pockets, Piper looked up at the stars.

If she closed her eyes, she could almost hear Jason’s eager voice, pointing out constellations to her. She could hear her dad’s rumbling tone, telling her an old Cherokee story under the sparkling dots. She could hear her friends’ laughter on the _Argo II_ , she could hear Leo’s jokes, she could hear Annabeth’s hilarious stories of Camp mishaps and Percy’s nail-biting tales of questing feats. She even heard Frank and Hazel trying to speak French with her before collapsing into laughter when they realized that the three of them were all speaking different dialects and none of them had any idea what the others were saying, and everything started running together until it was like an ocean, a symphony of crashing and overlapping voices, connected by the stars.

“Hey.”

And then Shel was there.

“You okay?”

Piper smiled. The night was warm, the stars were out, and far away, she could hear an owl hooting. It was peaceful, it was calm, and Piper was happy.

“I’m great,” she said, and meant it. 

She took Shel’s hand, and leaned in for another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> frank, hazel, and piper definitely tried to speak french with each other and you can't convince me otherwise
> 
> also if you don't like piper mclean you can catch these hands. im 5'5" and 100 pounds but i am not afraid to fight you in a denny's parking lot at midnight.


End file.
